


Innocence

by juniperwick



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Emotions, Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 23:23:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1282516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniperwick/pseuds/juniperwick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing scene from 1x06. Athos carries baby Henry back to Paris and Constance; he is about as good with babies as you would expect. It turns out that, like most things, Henry reminds Athos of all the things he would rather forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Innocence

The last time Athos had held a baby was when Thomas had been small. So when Aramis thrust Henry—squirming with a strength he looked too small to possess—into his arms, he had been taken aback for a moment. He understood the plan at once—Aramis would have to be the point man today—but he still stood dumbly for a moment, staring down at the little creature. Henry screwed up his face, preparing to cry.

“Go!” Aramis hissed, and Athos, regaining his senses, nodded. He gave Aramis a look— _good luck_ —before turning and, with the baby pressed to his chest, striding away from the brandy cart. 

He joined the people hurrying away from the scene that Porthos and d'Artagnan were making. Taking off his hat to make a less recognisable silhouette, he held it between Henry and the world. When the first barrel exploded—a crack he felt in his lungs—Athos hunched his shoulders against the flying splinters. He did not look back.

They had left their horses hitched to a tree in a hollow in the woods half a mile back. The horses were skittish at the distant explosions, and snorted and rolled their eyes as Athos approached. It was only when Athos glanced down that he realised that Henry was crying, face plum red and wet mouth open, bawling his little heart out. All Athos could hear was a drone like an angry swarm in his ears.

With the squalling Henry balanced in the crook of his arm, Athos did his best to soothe his horse. She took precious minutes to settle, white-eyed and wary of the noisy little beast her master carried. Athos fed her candied apricots from his pocket and determinedly didn't think about what would happen were a passerby to hear the baby crying.

It was only when Cocotte had calmed enough to let him spring up, hat resettled on his head, and coax her into a careful trot that Athos allowed himself to consider the child. 

It was difficult. He had never ridden while holding a baby before. He would never have been permitted with Thomas. His parents had always been overprotective of their younger son. He had suspected, in recent years, that they had sensed a nobler soul in their secondborn. Or perhaps they had somehow sensed his doom.

Of course he could ride with no hands, guiding Cocotte with his knees. He had been able since he was ten. It was only that a horse, the stupid beast, seemed the worst animal to have around something so small and fragile as an infant. He wondered what that made him—rough, hairy, horsey creature that he was. And, unlike innocent Cocotte, he had killed.

Time pressed—and Athos had rarely before felt so exposed, alone on a horse with a baby in the morning sun—but he didn't dare urge Cocotte faster. The countryside ambled by as they trotted toward Paris, green and dusty, summer birds warbling in the trees. Henry had fallen silent after a while, perhaps intuiting that wailing got him nowhere with this new courier. Athos was thankful: his hearing had begun to come back. 

When Henry had fallen silent, Athos had looked down at him. The baby had a fist in his mouth, looking aimlessly around with his myopic blue eyes. “Your majesty,” Athos had said, with a treasonable thrill, and smiled. Henry directed his guileless gaze up at him. 

The treacherous thought stole in before Athos had time to steel himself against it: was this how his son would have looked, had he had the chance to have one?

Athos jerked his head up and fixed his eyes upon the blue horizon. In the curve of his arm, Henry burbled and squeaked, but Athos didn't look down. He wished, inasmuch as he allowed himself on principle to indulge in such a pointless activity, that Aramis had bundled the child into Porthos' arms, or d'Artagnan's. Creatures like him were as bad as horses around babies. Worse, even—at least horses were only dangerous because they were stupid.

When the cart had gone from under her, leaving her feet kicking in the clear air, he had expected his mind to crack in two, like a lightning-struck tree. The fact that it did not was indictment enough against his character.

Henry had begun crying again by the time they reached the city walls. The guards knew Athos, and let him through without a word, but he saw their looks nonetheless. He guided Cocotte through the narrow streets and the city stink—more oppressive now, after a morning in the fresh air—shielding Henry with his hat again, to the house of M. and Mme. Bonacieux.

Constance ran from the house before he had even dismounted, reaching up to take Henry from him. Athos handed him over, gladly. She fussed over him while Athos hitched Cocotte—calmer, in her native Paris—to a post, and stroked her forehead, and fed her more candied apricots. 

“He likes to be sung to,” Constance said, a shade reproving. 

“Of course he does,” Athos sighed, turning.

She looked up at him, brows and mouth parallel lines. “What's going on?”

“Inside,” he said.

They went inside. 

In the front room, the fire was cold, but Constance nodded at a chair and Athos sat. Jouncing Henry in her arms and humming, she absently nudged a bottle of wine toward him. Athos took it, and a cup, because drinking from the bottle in front of Constance was something he couldn't countenance.

“Where are the others?” she asked, glancing up.

“We have a plan,” Athos said. He drained the first cup of wine in one swallow. “They shouldn't be far behind me.”

Constance leveled a stare at him. “I know without even needing to ask that you're not taking this baby to the palace,” she said. Despite her phrasing, Athos sensed the question in it. 

“Of course not,” he said, and she smiled, one of her radiant sunshine smiles, in the face of which Athos couldn't resist the corners of his mouth drawing up a touch.

Perching on the table beside him, Constance settled Henry against her side and turned her smile on the baby. Athos, pouring another cup of wine, watched her. At last Constance said, without turning, “You look sad.”

“You look...” Athos cast about for the right word. “Wistful,” he said at last. 

Constance glanced at him, and behind the everyday exasperation Athos could read the unspoken understanding that was a silent current between them. _Your absent husband_ , he didn't need to say. She communicated with a look: _your dead wife_.

(They had known one another for a long time. There had been times when he thought he would tell her just how his wife had died. Too restless to go back to his rooms, too melancholy for company—too drunk for decent people like Constance to put up with, and yet she had anyway. It was only selfishness that kept his mouth shut. If he told her, he would lose her.)

Then, loud hooves on the cobbles outside. Athos and Constance met one another's eyes. Constance quirked half a smile at him. “That'll be them now,” she said. “I'm on tenterhooks to hear the rest of your plan.” She stood, resettling Henry in her arms. He wriggled for a moment, then subsided. Constance caught Athos' eyes again. “Come on,” she said, not unkindly. “Chin up. The day's not over yet.”

Athos nodded. He sighed, drank his wine, and stood. Then, in case it wasn't the others, he went out first into the sun.


End file.
